WESTMORELAND — With two Section III titles under its collective belt already, Oneida enters the 2026 flag football season as a No. 1 seed following its strongest regular-season showing yet.
Oneida’s Express (14-1) drew the top seed for Class C with Syracuse East (15-1) atop Class A, and Fayetteville-Manlius (6-7) first in Class B.
The postseason is being competed in three classes for the second time after two divisions composed the playoff field in 2024, the inaugural season of an NYSPHSAA-sanctioned state tournament.
A growing number of participating schools is helping to fill the brackets. Seven teams competed in the spring of 2024 when Oneida shut out the Syracuse Academy of Science, the only other Division II team, in its championship game. Fourteen teams played this spring, and the difference shows in the smaller schools; Oneida is one of five Class C schools, up from three last year when the Express beat then-newcomer Sherburne-Earlville 34-6 in the finals, and Class B has four teams after Central Square won a championship by default in 2025.
The tournament quarterfinals open postseason play Friday. Upper seeds host semifinals Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and all three championship games will be contested May 22 on Westmoreland’s new turf field that opened midway through the fall football and soccer season and served as the home field for the combined Westmoreland/Oriskany team’s first flag football season this spring.
Oneida plays the final scheduled semifinal at home Wednesday against the winner of Friday’s Class C opener between No. 5 OnTech Charter of Syracuse and No. 4 Sherburne-Earlville. Oneida, the lone Tri-Valley League school with a team, defeated Sherburne-Earlville (3-10), the first Center State Conference school to participate when it went to the finals last year, twice during its 11-0 start to the season, and also beat OnTech Charter (0-13), a first-time participant this spring, twice during the season.
Oneida’s lone loss came in an April 30 home game against Syracuse East, which is unbeaten within Section III this spring and has won 10 consecutive games since its lone loss to Section IV Binghamton.
Westmoreland/Oriskany (8-3-1) closed its first regular season with wins over OnTech Charter and Sherburne-Earlville and earned the No. 2 seed. The Bulldogs play a Monday semifinal at home against Jamesville-DeWitt (4-9-1) and would also be home for the championship game should they advance.
The sectional champions move on to the state tournament that ends with semifinal and championship play June 6 and 7 at Homer and Cortland high schools.
This article originally appeared on Times Telegram: Oneida receives top seed for sectional flag football playoffs
Reporting by Jon Rathbun, Herkimer Times Telegram / Times Telegram
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
